| Home Front: WoT | ||
| US State Cancels Subsidy For Investment From Pakistani Company | ||
| 2013-05-20 | ||
Midwest Fertilizer Corp, which has sought to build the plant in southern Indiana, is 48 per cent owned by Fatima Group, which produces a calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Pakistain known to have been used in improvised explosives in Afghanistan. Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Republican, had put a $1.3 billion incentive package for the fertilizer manufacturing plant on hold in January pending a review. He said Friday that the incentives would be withdrawn.
Midwest Fertilizer said it would pursue other options to continue the project in the area. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation made the offer to Midwest Fertilizer Corp in November 2012 under former Governor Mitch Daniels. The Indiana Finance Authority had issued $1.3 billion of bonds in December and the funds have been held in escrow and will be used to repay the bond holders. Fatima Group has reformulated the fertilizer to make it less explosive and the product is to be tested with the US government in June, Midwest Fertilizer said in a statement. Fatima Group also has stopped selling the fertilizer in areas of Pakistain that border Afghanistan, Midwest Fertilizer said. The border with Afghanistan is where Taliban and Al Qaeda gunnies have been battling US and allied forces since the shortly after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Midwest said the project would bring 2,500 construction jobs and 309 permanent jobs to the region. US Senator Joe Donnelly, an Indiana Democrat, said the state's first responsibility was to the safety and security of troops. "My concern with this project has been our service members overseas who face the threat of improvised weapons made from fertilizer and other products," Donnelly said in a statement. John Taylor, who heads the Posey County Economic Development Partnership, where the plant would be located, said he had not given up hope for the project. "The decision the governor made today does nothing to make it safer for our service people anywhere in the world," he said. | ||
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| Washington Times Gets Action! Indiana Gov. Spikes Deal With Pakistani Bomb Supplier |
| 2013-02-02 |
| [Washington Times] Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has suspended a deal to finance an in-state fertilizer plant to be built by a Pak conglomerate that the Pentagon has criticized for refusing to take steps to stop the flow of materials to makers of bombs that kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. News of Mr. Pence's action followed a report Monday in The Washington Times that said Pakistain's Fatima Group stood to benefit from the sale of $1.27 billion in tax-exempt municipal bonds in Indiana even as it rebuffed Pentagon efforts to save U.S. lives. The governor "immediately ordered that the project be suspended pending further investigation," said Pence spokeswoman Christina Denault. "Indiana is actively investigating in consultation with federal authorities/[Defense Department] the situation at this time." |
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| Fifth Column |
| Pakistani Fertilizer Firm To Expand In US, Balks On Controlling Bomb Materials |
| 2013-01-29 |
| [Washington Times] The Pak corporation that has refused the Pentagon's urgent appeals to control the flow of kabooms to bomb-makers who kill U.S. troops is expanding its fertilizer manufacturing into the United States. And it is being done with the help of U.S. taxpayers through the municipal bond market. The Indiana Finance Authority has approved $1.27 billion in tax-exempt bonds for Midwest Fertilizer Corp. to build a nitrogenous fertilizer manufacturing plant in Posey County. Midwest is a new startup company of the Fatima Group, a conglomerate headquartered in Lahore, Pakistain. Fatima's fertilizer components are used by bully boyz in Pakistain and Afghanistan to build homemade bombs -- the No. 1 killer of American service members in Afghanistan. Fatima's corporate leaders know this is happening, based on communications with B.O. regime officials and military leaders, but they have refused pleas to control the flow, according to an Army general. |
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